the inevitable (is not far enough)
by Ms-Deunan
Summary: Whimsyshire is a place, a place of light and laughter and unicorns. Then Ossen comes across it, and it's a nightmare. But only for those in Whimyshire. For the folks in Sanctuary, Ossen's forays through the rainbow portal are a godsend. [Diablo III: Reaper of Souls; post-game][PC: female!Barbarian][crack!fick][complete]


**Author's Note:** Written for LJ Community Writerverse and their Challenge #14: October BINGO Table of DOOM (word prompts used: Unicorns for Everyone!, A Glimpse of the Future, Trick or Treat, Don't Stop Now, Handmade).

 _Have you ever stopped and wondered what the inhabitants of Whimsyshire think of the player-character? ... Yeah, it's okay. I haven't given it much thought either ;P_

* * *

There were not enough secrets in Sanctuary to keep Ossen's attention long. Tyrael has tried with his network of eyes and ears, has searched long and hard for something, anything, to keep her from boredom. Gave her the hardest of trials, the unbearable, the unbeatable, but sending her out to find death, when even the Angel of Death had succumbed to her might, was an impossible task all its own.

And when she came back, he feared. Feared like he always does. Feared like a human, like an angel, like the fallen to her blade.

And when he despaired, she disappeared. His eyes and his ears could find her not.

And now he hopes.

He hopes.

* * *

Super Awesome-Cute Sparkles (the Second) was having a perfectly perfect day in Whimsyshire. He was visiting the Green Frog who was visiting the Clouds of Laughter. _Rapture,_ he thinks, _O happy day!_ he has come just in time to hear something wondrous- nay, something momentous: the clans were gathering, a Traveler has come to their beautiful land, a Traveler from Far and Farther-Still.

He was too young when a Traveler came through last; bid stay by the chargers and his dame, who had gone and left and had not come back again. Now he would go - he would see!- see what has kept his herd ever so long.

"Can you show me the path?" he asked of Clouds and Frog.

"Not I," Green Frog said, and jumps into the waters. "I've much to do and many more to tell," said she, and that was that.

"What of you," the coltish unicorn asked at last. "Can you not drift on a current for me?"

"No need, no need, yon foolish steed," sung the Right.

"It marches over marshes," sighed the Left.

"From glen to dale," Right is joined by Left, "you'll see it without fail."

"You can stay here with us," they giggle now together, "stay, it'll be less fuss."

How sad, Super Awesome-Cute Sparkles (the Second) thinks their existence to be, so content to hold a rainbow between them and miss all the fun and partying that has kept everyone so enthralled that they've been gone for _years_ and _years_.

* * *

Ossen hadn't believed the tattered scroll worth hide or ink, but the mad-gab laundry list of blood and bone and gibbering schematics had cobbled together after all. The Staff of Herding. Well, that was… something? Something potentially worth more than an otherwise identical knobby stick. Maybe. Okay, probably not, but Ossen has never failed to follow through on something she has set her mind on. _This_ will not be a mark against her perfect record (a record that, she would like everyone to know, is without question the most ridiculous '1000 Things To Do Before I Die' list that Tyreal should never have dreamt up, let alone passed on to her).

So she follows a drunkard's map and finds the skeletal remains of a bovine sovereign and jumps down a cliff into a glowing aurora that might actually be a portal to another world.

Because, really, at this point: why not?

* * *

Super Awesome-Cute Sparkles (the Fourth) trots away from the den, clip-clop clipping in a care that speaks of youthful defiance. She absolutely cannot stand the thought of being left out of the gathering. She won't have it! Not when there was something so new and amazing happening. So she goes – straight there, no short cuts and absolutely no seeking – and is rewarded handsomely. Ha!

There are Smiling Sunflowers and Teddy Bears and her herd and they are all galloping towards a- a- a thing. _O Stars_ , she practically whinnies, _it's the Traveler!_

It's like a Teddy Bear; standing on two legs.

It's like a Smiling Sunflower; shining as it moves.

It's like a Unicorn, one of the herd; with its bright red mane.

But it is not like them at all and it's dancing is strange. Weaving and ducking and playful. But it's not playful. It's not. It's wrong and vicious and there's so much red. It's red all over and it's a red that's not like confetti at all. It's water and wet and red and it's all legs and arms and half bodies and heads and once they're down they don't get back up. And that's wrong.

So very wrong.

* * *

Ossen steps out of the rainbow portal -it's still too bright. And loud. And Great Ancestors, that smell?! - and while she's better prepared this time it's still a shock to the system. She can't quite tell if she loves this world or hates it, but she's not going to stop plundering its verdant plains until she's figured it out. It's a puzzle, at the very least, this place. All sun and shine and unholy goodness and it's to such a degree in excess that she's quite convinced is a front for an Evil that would out-evil the Prime Evil himself. And even if it wasn't, the loot. O the shiny, shiny loot!

She's slaughtered hordes of treasure goblins and not met such bounty.

 _And yeah,_ a pink horned horse charges, leaving a trail of sparkles and Ossen leaps into battle with laughing glee _that's it, come to mamma!_

* * *

Haedrig doesn't like it when they pull into New Tristram. There's a stink to the town that hasn't gone down since before he still had his wife. It's all rot, this place, no matter how much time has passed or how much rebuilding they've done. But Tyrael insists they come here often and Haedrig's not one to say no to an Angel. He's smarter than that.

So when the Barbarian lass twirls her God-Slayer in one hand and practically skips out of town _humming_ , he won't ask. Won't ask because he has eyes in his head and knows how to look. He's seen the Angel and his disciple and the way they look at her now. He had seen their glances and their full-body pauses and knew what they meant, long before Mathael fell to the strength of her conviction.

So he doesn't like New Tristram. Hates it, even, for the fortnight they stay. But he understands.

Super Awesome-Cute Sparkles (the Ninth) knows the stories. The scary stories that they were told by the Clouds and the Frogs. Stories of Ending. Stories of death- of Death, who comes for all the wonderful marvelous joyous creatures of Whimsyshire.

The stories do not do Death justice.


End file.
